Tools Armature Proxy Generator

This tool creates a proxy of a mesh with an Armature, as explained by Pierrick Picaut. It generates a mesh for each bone and avoids using Vertex Groups and Armature modifiers, greatly improving viewport performance.

The benefit of this tool is huge performance improvements in the viewport, at the cost of mesh quality. This makes it great for the blocking and animating stage. Since the tool does not modify the source mesh, you can safely go back to the original mesh whenever needed.

Important

Disable the original mesh using the Collection checkbox button, not by disabling individual objects — otherwise Blender will still evaluate them in the viewport.

By default a new armature is created. Once you finish animating, the Action should be linked to the original Armature (the bone names are exactly the same, so no retargeting is needed). This improves performance, as drivers and other data are removed from the Armature object.

Tip

There is also the possibility to create the new meshes and link them directly to the original Armature instead of creating a new one.

There are several options to transfer data from the source mesh to the individual bone meshes. UV Layers is on by default to get the correct materials on the meshes, but it can be removed if only solid mode is needed.